Dennis Fisher

Security appliance vendor NetScreen Technologies Inc. on Monday announced that it has agreed to acquire Neoteris Inc. for $265 million. The move signals NetScreens intention to expand its product portfolio and become a more diversified company. Neoteris is one of the leaders of the growing SSL virtual private network market. The companys flagship product is […]

An incomplete patch has opened the door to the widespread exploitation of a vulnerability in Internet Explorer, and security experts say that there are at least four different methods being used by attackers to compromise vulnerable PCs. Most recently, experts identified a new Trojan, known as Qhost-1, that has been discovered on a number of […]

Network Associates Inc. on Monday agreed to pay a group of shareholders $70 million to settle some class-action lawsuits against the company. The settlement, which is still subject to approval by the U.S. District Court for Northern California, resolves suits in which shareholders accused the company of misleading them by booking revenue improperly. The suits, […]

Security researchers have discovered a pair of vulnerabilities in the OpenSSL software package, one of which may allow an attacker to execute code on vulnerable machines. Both vulnerabilities have to do with the way the package interacts with ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation One), a low-level language used to describe abstract syntax. OpenSSL implements both the […]

When @stake Inc. on Thursday announced that it had fired its CTO Dan Geer, no one was more surprised than Geer himself. A security researcher and scientist with more than 30 years of experience, including work on some groundbreaking projects, Geer was let go just a day after the publication of a paper he co-authored […]

After years of being criticized for failing to lead by example in information security, the federal government last week for the first time used its unparalleled purchasing power to force technology vendors to improve the security of their products. Days after the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it had signed an open-ended contract with […]

Dan Geer, the principal author of a recent report on the security risks of Microsoft Corp.s monopoly, has lost his job as the chief technology officer of security consultant @stake Inc. because of his involvement with the report. Geer, a well-known and respected security expert, wrote the paper along with several other famous security figures, […]

Looking to solidify its position in the enterprise security market, anti-virus vendor Sophos Inc. on Wednesday announced that it has agreed to acquire ActiveState Corp., a Canadian anti-spam provider. The acquisition, which cost Sophos $23 million, gives the company an avenue to challenge the larger anti-virus companies, such as Network Associates Inc. and Symantec Corp., […]

The sorry state of security on the Internet is only going to get worse unless governments, enterprises and home users make a conscious decision to move away from their addiction to Microsoft Corp.s software, according to a new report from a group of renowned security experts. The report, released Wednesday, concludes that the ubiquity of […]

The federal government on Tuesday announced a major new purchasing initiative designed to reward vendors whose products meet certain stringent security standards. The program is an outgrowth of an emerging philosophy inside the Beltway that the governments purchasing power should be used to encourage software and hardware vendors to improve the security of their offerings. […]

Netegrity Inc. and startup Layer 7 Technologies Inc. are each seeking to simplify the process of securing and managing Web services deployments. Netegrity, which has been one of the major players in several Web services security standards efforts, this week plans to release a reference architecture for securely deploying Web services. The document lays out […]

A new mass-mailing virus is on the loose on the Internet, this one masquerading as a message from Microsoft Corp. about a cumulative security patch. Known as either Swen or Gibe, the virus is mainly found in Europe right now, but anti-virus experts say it has the potential to spread quickly and widely. Like some […]